Most people go red after a good workout. The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO) is trialling a fitness system that lets them go green instead.

Husband-and-wife team Matt and Georgie Delaney already had hundreds of outdoor gyms installed in parks and public spaces but they wanted people to look after them more.

“We were trying to illustrate the energy that people put in when they work out. Then we thought: ‘Why don’t we try to use some of that energy?’” says Matt, who used to be Sport England’s regional director for London, administering Lottery cash for grass-roots sport.

What TGO developed was a green crosstrainer and three different static bikes which can generate an average of 50 to 100 watts each, depending on the fitness of the user. Delaney says that one hour’s exercise translates into two hours of lighting — perfect for powering a late-night gym session. Charging up your mobile phone by bike power is “exactly the same as plugging it into the wall”.

The first energy gym in London has been trialled at the Sir George Monoux College in Waltham Forest, whose students suggested the phone-charging application. Any surplus energy is sent back into the college building.

“They have solar panels, they have a biomass boiler and now they have an energy gym. The combination of all of these things really does start to help,” adds Matt, a former PE teacher and national league basketball player who these days plays cricket.

“It helps the students appreciate that energy is a very valuable resource and when you have to generate it yourself you realise how difficult it is. If you had to power everything using people power you would boil the kettle a lot less and switch off the lights when you leave the room.”

Energy gyms are still a tiny part of the business for TGO, which employs 15 people in Dartford, with another 15 in its installation team. It has put in just six £25,000 systems nationally, out of 600 gyms overall. But it is gearing up to make a bigger splash when it formally launches the equipment at the Paris climate-change talks in November.

The Delaneys want to use publicity around the event to promote the potential value of human energy to the national grid, saying: “You have feed-in tariffs for wind and solar, so why not feed-in tariffs for human energy?”

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The idea for the business occurred when the pair were both working for Sport England in 2007. They were inspired by a Chinese government plan to install free-to-use outdoor gym equipment in parks and public spaces. Convinced the idea would work well in the UK, they quit their jobs and set up in business together.

Most of the gyms have been installed in partnership with schools or local councils. Their business had a fillip during the London Olympics, when sponsor Adidas funded “Adizone” outdoor gyms in the shape of the 2012 logo. In Hull, where TGO piloted the gym system that uses energy to power lighting, it was named the second-best place in world to train outdoors — coming second only to Muscle Beach in California.

Last week TGO was highly commended by energy-efficiency company ENGIE UK in its Big Pitch competition that was searching for next big idea in energy efficiency and smart technology. The contest was won by Big Solar, which has developed low-cost and flexible photovoltaic sheets, used to make solar panels.

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“The way the world generates and consumes energy is going through an unprecedented transformation. To successfully navigate this energy transition requires innovative thought and a fresh perspective,” says ENGIE UK’s Wilfrid Petrie.

The Evening Standard is running a series of Clean London reports on how green technology can improve the city’s environment. On June 30 it will host a green debate, chaired by Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark and sponsored by ENGIE.

During its green trials, TGO’s gym design has evolved to try to encourage people to change their use. Delaney says: “We are trying to design the equipment now so that people use it at a steady pace. At first people used it like they were at the fairground: just bashing it as hard as they could to see if they could ring a bell at the top.”